Six College of Engineering faculty members are among the NSF's 160 early career researchers who will receive five years of funding to explore new areas of engineering research.

The Georgia Tech researchers are:

  • Chloé Arson, Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Asegun Henry, Assistant Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
  • Jonathan Rogers, Assistant Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
  • Phanish Suryanarayana, Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Alejandro Toriello, Assistant Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering
  • Shuman Xia, Assistant Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

The financial support for the awards comes from the NSF's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. 

 Begun in 1995, the CAREER program provides promising junior faculty the opportunity to pursue outstanding research, excellence in teaching, and the integration of education and research.

"Abundant clean water, food and clean energy, smarter cities, affordable healthcare -- these things don't have to be fiction," said Pramod Khargonekar, NSF assistant director for Engineering.

"Reaching the ideal for humanity that we all seek depends upon our investments now in new generations of engineering researchers, if we are to turn our aspirations into future progress."

Each CAREER award from the NSF Directorate for Engineering provides a minimum of $500,000 over five years. This year's Engineering CAREER awards total approximately $80 million, out of an estimated $226 million for the NSF program overall.

For more about the awards and details of the research, read the NSF press release.